GoPro Hero4 Sessions and Why You Shouldn’t Buy It

The most viewed and most commented on post I’ve written is GoPro Hero3 and Why You Shouldn’t Buy It.  If you type gopro sucks into google I’m the first result.  I’ve gotten quite a few comments about that post, mostly negative.  People get connected to their brands and like to defend them, it’s understandable.  In that post I was pretty negative about the GoPro 960 that I bought, I didn’t really like the camera, but I didn’t do a very good job of actually explaining my real problem with it, I’ll try to do better in this post.

I’ve watched a promotion video for the GoPro Hero4 Sessions and it looks awesome.  They improved alot of things, the shape and size are 100 times better, the fact that it’s not in a lame plastic case any more is really nice.  Unfortunately there is a problem, apparently image quality sucks, at least according to reviews, oh yeah and it costs 400 dollars.  The Hero4 Silver edition also costs 400 dollars, and it’s image quality is probably worlds above my old 960, it’s probably a fantastic camera.  I’ve never used one.

So here I am again telling you not to buy a GoPro, a guy who last used one that was outdated by like 4 generations, maybe I’m crazy.  Before I just drop a blanket statement and say you don’t need a GoPro let me ask you these questions.

If this looks like your trail then yeah, get that gopro.

If you’re a mountain cyclist ask yourself. do I ride my bike off the roof of my house?  Do I careen down mountains at highly unsafe speeds?  Am I likely to crash in spectacular fashion?  Do I have a bunch of crazy friends who do these things?

If you are a road cyclist ask yourself, do I race?

If you can’t answer yes to at least one of these question you shouldn’t buy a gopro.  If you do you’ll fill your hard drive with really boring video that no one wants to watch, you’d be much better off with a still camera.

Now lets say you surf, kayak white water, race cars, run with bulls. jump out of airplanes, or pretend to be a flying squirrel and jump off of mountains?  You should probably get a GoPro.

So lets boil this down even further.  Do you regularly do things that are dangerous and likely to result in serious injury or death?  You should probably get a GoPro.  The rest of us should look elsewhere.

By the way, I’m not the first person to realize this.